Contents

The story takes place in Russia in the year 1910. Yegor (Lawrence Tibbett), a dashing (as well as singing) bandit leader meets Princess Vera (Catherine Dale Owen) at a mountain inn. They fall in love, but the relationship is shattered when Yegor kills Vera's brother, Prince Serge, for raping his sister, Nadja, and driving her to suicide. Yegor kidnaps Vera, forcing her to live a life of lowly servitude among the bandits. Vera manages to outwit Yegor, who is captured by soldiers and flogged. Vera begs Yegor's forgiveness. Although still in love with each other, they realize they cannot be together, at least for the time being.

There were ten comic episodes throughout the film in which Laurel and Hardy appeared. One of these has survived on film. In this scene, there is a storm and a tent is blown away revealing Stan and Oliver. They try to sleep without any cover. A bear enters a cave. Stan and Oliver decide to seek shelter in the cave and, because it is so dark, they can't see the bear. Oliver thinks Stan is wearing a fur coat. The bear begins to growl. Stan and Oliver flee.

Another segment, in which Laurel swallows a bee, has also survived on the trailer to the film, which has survived almost intact.

The film is MGM's first All-Talking, All-Color (Technicolor) production. It was also the screen debut of Lawrence Tibbett, who was a world renowned star of the Metropolitan Opera. The film is notable today as Laurel and Hardy's first appearance in color, although at the time of release they were only minor players in the film.

Despite extensive searches, no complete print of the movie has been found. One reel features a ballet sequence by Albertina Rasch and survives intact at the UCLA Film and Television Archive. Another surviving reel features Lawrence Tibbett singing to Catherine Dale Owen survives at the Czech Film Archive in Prague. In addition, a short fragment exists which features Lawrence Tibbett and Catherine Dale Owen as they are caught in a storm. This fragment also features a short comic segment with Laurel & Hardy hide in a cave in which a bear has taken shelter. An almost complete print of the original trailer also survives at UCLA -- the first sixty seconds are lost, due to deterioration, but the sound survives complete as it was recorded on Vitaphone disks, rather than MGM's usual usage of Movietone. In the trailer, Lawrence Tibbett sings White Dove to Catherine Dale Owen. A short segment featuring the comics Laurel & Hardy is also seen in which Laurel has apparently swallowed a bee. In addition to these film fragments, the complete soundtrack survives because it was re-recorded on Vitaphone disks for theaters that did not have optical sound systems. Prints made in the early two-color Technicolor processes proved especially unstable due to the color dyes used, compounded by the instability of the nitrate film used for the negatives and prints. Digital restoration processes have been employed to transfer many early Technicolor films to more stable "safety" stock.

The Lawrence Tibbett Estate held a color copy of the entire Rogue Song for many years after his death. Tibbett liked the film and showed it frequently to his friends. The late Allan Jones was a regular visitor and friend and reportedly gained possession of the print, which his son Jack Jones unfortunately had to junk because of nitrate film decomposition.

MGM held the negative of reel 4 until the early 1967. It is believed that the entire film was stored in their Vault No. 7 but was destroyed in the fire that occurred there.

A recent discovery in the former East Germany has provided evidence that a German two-color print of the film was copied, dubbed into Russian, and sent to the Soviet Union.

Lawrence Tibbett recorded some of the songs from the film in studio recordings released by RCA Victor on 78-rpm "Red Seal" discs.